white_rabbit wrote:Maybe the guys who pick up the recycling are more courteous and flip the lid closed after they take it out of the trucks mechanical arm and put it back on the curb? The garbage guys just seem a bit more angry at life than the recycling guys. In my neighborhood the garbage guys always leave the empty cans in the street while the recycling guys actually put the carts back on the curb.

Or maybe, and I know this is a longshot, but maybe the recyling people have had a lot more experience putting the cans back down so the lid closes than the garbage people. I know it's pretty tough to flip that lid closed, but give them a couple weeks to get used to the new system.

I would think the garbage guys have got to be a lot happier now that they don't have to do everything manually. And for the most part in my neighborhood both garbage and recycle containers are usually, not every single time, but usually put back on the curb.

In my neighborhood, I've seen every single recycling lid flipped open. I've seen them ride through areas they've already covered, and flip the lid open and look. I assumed they were checking to make sure they'd emptied them.

I live on the near east side of the isthmus, and our bin lids don't want to stay closed either. i noticed this when they were delivered to our curb last week. It was almost like they had been stored that way, and were kind of bent up or a little misshapen. Maybe exposing them to the elements, and with some normal wear and tear they will settle down.

Man, are these carts gigantic, though! An investigative reporter could camp out inside one of these! I am assuming we have the largest size--our landlords are the ones who picked them out, and they got 2 of the huge ones for a house with two apartments (total occupancy of the house=3), which seems excessive. Unless we are moving, I don't see us filling up even 1 cart regularly. But now we have to find a place to store 2 trash carts and 2 recycling carts....we have no garage or driveway, and the houses in this neighborhood are practically connected, leaving little beside the house space. Our street is already starting to look a little junky. An orderly junky, I guess, but still.

I do worry about raccoons and other small varmints figuring out ways of access for the new carts though. A friend of mine lives in Milwaukee and reports that their carts looked terrific until the raccoons learned how to concentrate their efforts (together or alone, I'm not sure) on boring holes through the things. They do seem pretty sturdy, but those little guys have sharp teeth and nothing but time on their hands.

Prof. Wagstaff wrote:<SNIP>See, the recycle bin gets picked up, emptied and when it is replaced on my lawn, the lid is closed.The garbage can, on the other hand, is left open after the dumping, thereby allowing the water in.And as I said, this was true for every can on my block.

Being the engineer geek that I am, I happened to be home recently and watched the garbage & recycling vehicles in operation (mostly wanted to verify that we were indeed separating the bins far enough apart, but I digress).
The garbage truck came first and I watched it all the way down the one side of street. Yup, every bin indeed was reset WITH THE LID OPEN (except ours, which toppled over due to our unique landscaping, but I digress).
When the recycling truck came by soon afterwards, MOST of the bins were reset WITH THE LIDS CLOSED! (Yes, ours just flopped over again, sigh).

Here's the details I noticed (did I mention I'm an engineer?):
The trucks indeed appear similar, but the arm-grabbing mechanisms are very different. The garbage truck's grabber moves in stuttery right-angle motions although it appears to have longer reach and can maneouver into tighter spots. When I watched this thing jerk when it was resetting the bins, there appeared no possible way the lids were ever going to close. In contrast, the recycling truck's grabber moves in a more arc-like motion and this motion seemed to help swing the lid closed as the bin was being reset.

I'll pass this along to Mr. Dreckman (sorry if I've mispelled your name, George).
There might be a trick to getting the lids closed and maybe the operators just need to practice/play with the grabbers (it's called training).

So we have these big huge green garbage cans, and I kinda sorta backed into it tonight and broke my drivers side mirror off. I feel like an idiot. I parked in my front yard, and my mom usually never puts the garbage can in the middle of the front yard, and I wasn't expecting it to be there, next thing I know I hear a thump, followed by a snap and then I see my mirror flying across the yard. My girlfriend did the same thing about 3 months ago, and I ragged her pretty hard, and now I feel like an ass. So I guess I'm gonna order the painted street scene mirrors from clean cut. At least it gives me an excuse to get them. I really didn't want to get them now tho. I hope it'll look alright with the painted mirrors and the black handles. I wanna get the door handles eventually. Now I get to drive around with out a mirror for a week or 2, how fun!